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(this post is a reprint of a post from my wordpress.com blog dated May 10th 2012)
I've been thinking a lot about the world of art and marketing…commercialism and the like. Many artists struggle and struggle financially and there is an overwhelming (it sometimes seems) perception that artists do not make money until they are dead….if then. The argument I heard many years ago that influenced me decide to change from being an art major in college to a business major instead…and eventually, a psychology major – maybe to help me figure out me, more that anything. But I digress.
I think that there is an exclusivity that the purveyors of art promote that is harmful to both artists and the public alike….harmful to them as well, for in promoting exclusivity in the art world, or to put it more simply…intimidating the majority of the people in the world – people who are not necessarily educated about "what art is and is not" – you have limited your market to far fewer people. How many people are too intimidated by their perceived lack of knowledge about art to even walk into an art gallery? There is so much fun made of what people say about art in galleries and museums (you can find many stories on the web) that I am self-conscious about saying anything about a work of art within earshot of gallery and museum employees and owners if the atmosphere of the place feels in any way "exclusive". The thing is, art is subjective. If I look at a Jackson Pollock painting and think it's just silly…to me – that is my right. Right?
I am not a Thomas Kinkaid fan – but I won't read a romance novel either. They just don't engage me. But lots of people are crazy about both. That's GREAT! Andy Warhol, on the other hand. I have always liked Andy Warhol's art. Both of these artists were really good promoters of their own work, Andy Warhol was a promotional genius, I think. I came across a really good article about him, if anyone reading this cares to read on. I put pictures of some ot the art that it refers to along the way…
From INTELLIGENT LIFE magazine, November/December 2011
Sara Friedlander, the 27-year-old head of First Open Sale at Christie's in New York, has a startling view of American art history. "Nothing good was made in the 19th century, nothing really good was made in the 18th century and American art in the 20th century for the first three, four or five decades was very elitist."
There was, in this view, no American Titian or Picasso, Raphael or Matisse. And then, suddenly, on July 9th 1962, there was. That was the date of the first solo show by Andy Warhol, the 33-year-old son of Slovakian immigrants. It was at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles and it consisted of a series of 32 paintings of Campbell's Soup Cans, one for each flavour—beef, clam chowder, cheddar cheese, etc. The response was underwhelming. Five sold for $100 each, but the gallery owner bought them back to keep the series intact.
Nevertheless, by the end of that year, Warhol had conquered New York, the capital of the art world, and America had the artist for which she had been waiting. "He reached a public", says Friedlander, "that no artist was able to do before him. Because he was able to accomplish what nobody else had done and in the way he was able to influence what came after him, I think that makes him, I would guess, the greatest artist of the 20th century."
There is nothing unorthodox about this claim. Almost unanimously, today's young art fans adore Andy as earlier generations adored Pablo Picasso or Jackson Pollock. "To the under-45s", says Georgina Adam of the Art Newspaper, "Warhol is what Picasso used to be to an older generation…and, like Picasso, he has become a man for all seasons."
This vast fan base has been reinforced by the shrewd licensing arrangements negotiated by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, established under the terms of the artist's will. There have been Warhol skateboards, Warhol editions of Dom Pérignon champagne and countless Warhol fashion lines, including Pepe jeans and Diane von Furstenberg dresses. But, in a wider sense, Warhol's colours and styles—especially his use of pop style—pervade the culture. Any city street shows evidence of the astonishing power and durability of his imagery.
The market backs the enthusiasm of the young. Those original soup cans are not for sale: bought by the Los Angeles dealer for $1,000, they were sold to the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1996 for $15m, a deal that promoted Warhol to art's first division. In 2008 a 12-foot-wide Warhol painting entitled "Eight Elvises", made in 1963, broke the $100m barrier, putting him in the same lofty bracket as Picasso, Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Gustav Klimt. The highest auction price, meanwhile, is $71.7m for "Green Car Crash" (1963). To put these dizzying prices in perspective, Titian recently achieved his highest ever auction price—$16.9m for "A Sacra Conversazione" from about 1560. This is an important picture by an artist many regard as the greatest painter that ever lived. But the market says that Warhol is more than five times better.
Warhol is now the god of contemporary art. He is indeed, it is said, the "American Picasso" or, if you prefer, the art market's one-man Dow Jones. In 2010 his work sold for a total of $313m and accounted for 17% of all contemporary auction sales. This was a 229% increase on the previous year—nothing bounced out of recession quite like a Warhol. But perhaps the most significant figure is the rise in his average auction prices between 1985 and the end of 2010: 3,400%. The contemporary-art market as a whole rose by about half that, the Dow by about a fifth. "Warhol is the backbone of any auction of post-war contemporary art," says Christopher Gaillard, president of the art consultants Gurr Johns. "He is the great moneymaker."
Some glee in the market is understandable—and not just because of the money. Warhol believed in fame and wealth: they were intrinsic to his aesthetic. The auctioneers are co-creators, carrying on Warhol's work post mortem, and the salerooms are extensions of the galleries. "How he would love it all!" says Sara Friedlander of the current frenzy. "I can see him at an auction, seated at front and centre with his Polaroid camera and his fright wig…I think of him in every sale we do."
Before Warhol, the believers argue, there was sterility; after Warhol there is a ravishing, visual cornucopia. Without him, they say, there would be no Jeff Koons, no Richard Prince, no Banksy, no Takashi Murakami, no Damien Hirst. Many of the fashionable artists in the world emerged from beneath Andy's fright wig.
There would also be no fun without Andy. The starting point for any assessment of his legacy is his instant accessibility: nobody need ever be puzzled by a Warhol—his lavish colours, his epic simplicity, above all his subject matter. "Andy always painted famous things," says the artist Michael Craig-Martin, "whether it was Liz Taylor or a Coke can."
"Even children love him," says Gul Coskun, a specialist Warhol dealer in London. "They stop their parents outside my shop. His pictures are big, colourful, they are not taxing academically. But they are taxing financially now."
All of which raises the question: is this a bubble—critical and financial—that will soon burst? In market terms, it seems likely if only because the rise in values has been so extreme. But the problem is that the market conceals more than it reveals. There are, it is said, 10,000 individual works—the exact number will only become clear when the vast catalogue raisonné is completed by the Warhol Foundation. They have just started work on Volume Four of this mighty project, but there is no current indication of when it will be finished.
About 200 Warhols come on the market each year. A large percentage are always bought by José Mugrabi, a New York-based dealer-collector who turns up at auctions in jeans, black T-shirt and baseball cap. Mugrabi made his money in textiles in Colombia. He moved to New York in 1982 and began collecting art. He likes to be seen to be buying and he is now believed to own 800 Warhols, some of them first-rank. Last year he is said to have bought more than 40% of the Warhols that came on the market. This scale of participation distorts the market and entails a risk of a swift collapse if Mugrabi were to withdraw. "The question is," says Noah Horowitz, author of "Art of the Deal: Contemporary Art in a Global Financial Market", "what value would those works sustain if and when the market sees some sort of correction?"
Probably only the Andy Warhol Foundation, which also oversees authentication and commercial exploitation of the works, has more Warhols than Mugrabi. The gallery-owner Larry Gagosian has a few too: in 2008 he spent around $200m on 15 to 20 Warhols from the collection of Ileana Sonnabend, an early fan. It would not be quite true to say that Mugrabi, Gagosian and the foundation control the market, but nobody doubts their combined ability to push up prices by sheer brute force. And the prices are further bolstered by museum demand. Few museums with aspirations to represent contemporary art want to be without one of Warhol's pictures. But this demand is subject to critical fashion. It is safe, therefore, to assume the prices are higher than a strictly open market would allow.
On top of that, the foundation always has the last word on what is and is not a Warhol—which can be tricky given that the work in question may be no more than a Brillo-pad box. Its authentications have not always been accepted. Joe Simon, an American film producer, has been fighting a long war with the foundation over the authenticity of a self-portrait he bought for $195,000 in 1989 (for a full account, go to myandywarhol.com). Later, wanting to sell, he submitted it to the foundation, which pronounced it inauthentic, stamping it "denied". A further resubmission resulted in another stamp—he had, in the jargon of the trade, been "double-denied". The two marks, Simon feels, have ruined the painting. He now plans to sue the foundation. "This is not just my fight," he says, "it's a fight for the integrity of Andy Warhol's work."
"The problem is", says Georgina Adam, "that the foundation wants Andy Warhol to be a high artist with high ideals, they want him to be like Leonardo da Vinci. They don't want to think that he just signed a lot of stuff without even looking at it, but he did."
If the works aren't always what they seem, neither are the auctions. "These sales are no longer auctions," says Allan Schwartzman, an art adviser. "To attract material at the top end, auction houses pre-sell the material to 'irrevocable bidders'. They are deliberate, orchestrated events." Irrevocable bids are guaranteed, pre-saleroom offers that ensure a work does not go unsold. But they also ensure that the price at auction may not strictly be a transparent meeting point between supply and demand; at times the auctions are little more than a theatre of private deals. Such arrangements are commonplace throughout the market, but they are especially important in the case of Warhol because of his absolute ascendancy and because of a market that is active while still being surprisingly narrow.
Christopher Gaillard does not think this is a problem. "Warhol is a global commodity now. His work is certainly supported by some key players we read about in the papers, but it's my belief that this is much more far-reaching than that. Warhol is the most powerful contemporary-art brand that exists. Picasso is another. It's about sheer, instant recognition and what comes along with it is a sense of wealth, glamour and power."
Whatever the hidden truth of the market, Warhol's ascendancy is out there in plain sight. And it is a perennial truth of the art business that high values tend to attract critical endorsement. "If you look at art history and criticism," says Julian Stallabrass of the Courtauld Institute in London, "a lot of it is promotional literature."
It is almost inevitable, therefore, that Warhol should be critically as well as commercially acclaimed. But the question is: does he deserve it? The answer begins with a pair of shoes.
In 1886 Vincent van Gogh painted a pair of very worn boots. It was a small painting—18 inches by 15—but a powerful one. It remains one of van Gogh's most familiar images. It is also one of the most densely discussed. Both the philosopher Martin Heidegger and the theorist and critic Frederic Jameson have pondered these boots. What they both conclude is that, in Jameson's words, "the work in its inert, objectal form is taken as a clue or symptom for some vaster reality which replaces it as its ultimate truth."
The painting is not simply an arrangement of pigments, nor even, primarily, a representation of something. It is, rather, a statement about a world that lies beyond the painting—the hard life and work of the peasant who wore these boots. It is a portrait of the man and his life painted in his absence. The painting is a window through which we see not just these boots but their place in a world of toil and struggle.
That, in fact, is exactly how people usually look at art, as a physical embodiment of wider meanings. What other reason is there to look at all? But Jameson goes on to compare van Gogh's boots with a Warhol print from 1980-81, "Diamond Dust Shoes". This work, says Jameson, "evidently no longer speaks to us with any of the immediacy of van Gogh's footgear; indeed, I am tempted to say that it does not really speak to us at all. Nothing in this painting organises even a minimal place for the viewer, who confronts it at the turning of a museum corridor or gallery with all the contingency of some inexplicable natural object."
That, in a nutshell, is the entire history of Warhol criticism. It all pivots on the meaning of the word "meaning" when applied to the visual arts. Warhol, a far more intelligent man than he liked to appear, understood this perfectly. "The more you look at the same exact thing," he said in 1975, "the more the meaning goes away and the better and emptier you feel." He also said: "Always leave them wanting less." He was in pursuit of an art that meant nothing.
The context in which his anti-definition of "meaning" appeared was that of a culturally triumphant post-war America. New York had usurped Paris as the capital of the art world and had given birth to its own art movement to rival those of the old Europe. Abstract expressionism ("AbEx") was widely seen as a statement that the United States need no longer suffer from any kind of cultural cringe. It has even been argued—though, in detail, also disputed—that these artists were financed and promoted by the CIA as ambassadors of freedom.
AbEx was a highly romantic version of modernism. It was a heroic confrontation between the artist and the canvas. The result, in the words of the critic Harold Rosenberg, was "not a picture but an event". Jackson Pollock laid his canvases on the floor and dripped paint on them. Mark Rothko's shimmering veils of paint yearned romantically for the beyond.
Morris Louis and Barnett Newman barely disturbed the blankness with their marks. Willem de Kooning embraced chaos as he stabbed at his just-about-figurative images. These were existential heroes of Bohemia, not of the saleroom; their quest was limitless, spiritual and meditative.
The AbExes found their voice in Clement Greenberg. An incisive, highly intellectual critic, he explained the artists to themselves and the world. Primarily, he told them that a painting was not a window on the world; it was a world, a wholly distinct, two-dimensional event. The viewer and the artist both engaged with paint and canvas, not with some external realm, like the life of the peasant that lay beyond van Gogh's boots. Painters were not even required to engage with three-dimensional space, such was the primal truth of the canvas.
Meaning in abstract expressionism lay in the heroic act of the artist. In Rothko it lay in a form of spiritual contemplation; in Pollock it emerged from the carefully contained workings of chance. The personality of the artist was crucial. The paintings were windows that looked inwards to psychology rather than out to the world. They were hermetic, recognisable only as elevated forms of introspection. As Sara Friedlander puts it, they were "only interested in themselves".
AbEx was the orthodoxy of the 1950s, but it was a paradoxical posture, curiously opposed to the spirit of the age. The post-war boom was getting under way and new machines and goods were raining down on consumers. The world was entering the image-soaked future foreseen and described by Marshall McLuhan. And yet this was precisely what these world-conquering artists were not painting.
Warhol was as soaked in images as anybody. Through the 1950s he was a successful commercial artist, known, among other things, for his advertisements showing highly distinctive blotty ink drawings of shoes. But he was also a devoted gallery-goer, determined to break into the citadel of high art. In fact, though he is often talked about as the godfather of pop art, he was beaten into the citadel by several other aspirants, notably Roy Lichtenstein who, from 1961, produced his giant blow-ups of comic book images. Desperate, Warhol turned to Muriel Latow, an adventurous gallery owner. According to Tony Scherman and David Dalton in their book "Pop: The Genius of Andy Warhol", he said to her, "Just tell me what to paint."
In return for a $50 cheque, she told him "to think of the most common, everyday, instantly recognisable thing he could". He thought of his doting mother, Julia Warhola. Warhol had been, according to the philosopher and critic Gary Indiana, her "tantrum-prone, acne-riddled, albino lion cub", a difficult and sick child to whom she gave maximum attention. He was spoilt—the family's "moody, tyrannical centre-piece" who "shaped weaknesses into weapons for rejecting anyone he didn't like and avoiding anything he didn't want to do". Julia lived in the basement of the Manhattan town house he had bought with his money from his advertising commissions. She used to give him soup for lunch—Campbell's soup.
The cans he exhibited in Los Angeles emerged both from his mother's menu and from a love of the colourful world of consumption. So they were not quite as impersonal as is often claimed. "Warhol's approach to pop culture", Scherman and Dalton argue, "was far from purely aesthetic: from childhood on, he loved its products and worshipped its heroes and heroines."
But his psychology played no part in their reception: they were seen as works devoid of introspection, shocking statements of the obvious. Whereas innocent viewers could stand in front of a Pollock and get no answer to the question "What is it?", they would get an immediate answer standing in front of a Warhol. "It's a soup can."
"It seems", wrote the artist Donald Judd of a 1963 Warhol exhibition, "that the salient metaphysical question lately is 'Why does Andy Warhol paint Campbell Soup cans?' The only available answer is 'Why not?' "
The 1962 Los Angeles show was followed, a few months later, by New York exhibitions which featured the massive "Marilyn Diptych"—50 versions of a photo of Marilyn Monroe, 100 Soup Cans, 100 Dollar Bills and, even more momentously, a pile of Brillo boxes.
Arthur Danto was a professor of philosophy at Columbia at the time. Interested in contemporary art, he visited the Stables gallery and saw the boxes. "I was working on a five-volume work on analytical philosophy," he tells me, "my head was full of Descartes and Russell and all the other tough thinkers and, when I walked into the Stables, I suddenly thought that art has finally caught up with philosophy and Andy did it. I was stunned and I changed the whole direction of my work. This was a completely new way of thinking about art."
Danto—who is now the grandest pillar in the edifice of Warhol appreciation—was preoccupied with how we evaluate our perceptions. From Descartes he inherited the mystery of how we could tell the difference between waking and sleeping consciousness. How did we know which was more real? Warhol's boxes asked the same question by replacing "real" with "art". How did we know which was more "art", a van Gogh or a Brillo box? "Andy showed that art and non-art cannot be told apart just by looking at them."
Marcel Duchamp had done this decades earlier, in 1917, by taking a urinal, signing it, exhibiting it and calling it "Fountain". But there was still something timeless—and, therefore, arty—about a urinal. Warhol hardened the theme by choosing something that was utterly contemporary and ephemeral. The following year he made the movie "Sleep", showing a man sleeping for five hours and 20 minutes. He had also, by then, founded the Factory, the defiantly named Manhattan location that became his headquarters, production line and studio. Its flamboyant radicalism made him a hero of the young, often with catastrophic consequences.
"I had a couple of students, actually my best students," Danto says. "They decided to go down to the Factory and they were ruined, completely ruined, as thinkers. They got druggy. I had imagined they would be serious philosophers but that never happened."
The defiance of the name lay in the idea that art could be produced in a factory, like any other consumer good. Warhol's art was not supposed to be a matter of emotion, introspection or spiritual quest; it was to be an image, pure and simple. "During the 1960s," he wrote knowingly in 1975, "I think, people forgot what emotions were supposed to be. And I don't think they've ever remembered."
This pursuit of affectlessness was what outraged—and still outrages—some critics and artists. According to Gary Indiana, de Kooning screamed "You destroyed art!" in Warhol's face.
In a crucial passage in his book "American Visions" (1998), the great critic Robert Hughes summarised Warhol's aesthetic: "It all flowed from one central insight: that in a culture glutted with information, where most people experience most things at second or third hand through TV and print, through images that become banal and disassociated by being repeated again and again and again, there is a role for affectless art. You no longer need to be hot and full of feeling. You can be supercool, like a slightly frosted mirror…Warhol…was a conduit for a sort of collective American state of mind in which celebrity—the famous image of a person, the famous brand name—had completely replaced both sacredness and solidity."
Clement Greenberg, meanwhile, realising that Warhol had flung a pot of vinyl paint in the face of the AbExes, was dismissive. "I find his art sappy. The big-screen portraits and all these things. Who cares about them?" He knew the critical basis of his entire career was being assaulted by pop.
"The whole of pop art", explains Stallabrass, "was a reply to Greenberg." Greenberg was defending art as a specific category, something set aside from the ordinary world. But, as Danto saw, Warhol created art that was an arbitrary aspect of the ordinary. There was no special category, girded by a language of depth and meaning; there was just what was defined as art at any given time. Being famous and making money was as legitimate a goal for the artist as self-exploration.
Ever since, the central theme of anti-Warhol sentiment is that he sold out, not just himself but the whole idea of art. The philosopher Roger Scruton argues that he had nothing to say: it really was all about money. "It is worth pointing out that there is neither beauty, nor elegance nor style in anything that Warhol did, and that the very media he chose were reflections of the moral emptiness within him. But since the result (like the silkscreens of Marilyn Monroe) convey that emptiness, there is nothing in them to understand; in no way do they present a challenge to the observer, other than the challenge to his chequebook. And if you are extremely rich, extremely stupid and morally vacant, why not write a cheque to prove it?"
The pro-Warhol response to that is that it misses the point. The chequebook is the aesthetic. "I think the argument one could well make", says Noah Horowitz, "is that in some sense his whole thing, his MO, his method of production was totally tied into that [the market], and it's one thing to analyse and criticise and do something aesthetic with that structure but Warhol embraced it and made it his aesthetic."
So either Warhol was an empty product of money or he made art out of money. Take your pick.
Valerie Solanas was a radical feminist who believed in the violent creation of an all-female society. In 1967 she asked Warhol to produce her play "Up Your Ass", but he lost the script and Solanas started demanding payment. Finally, in June 1968, she turned up at the Factory and shot him in the chest. It was a grievous wound—Warhol had to wear a corset for the rest of his life to, as he put it, "keep my insides in"—and he only just survived.
Solanas was imprisoned, though only until 1971, and she died in 1988. But she was not forgotten. In 1996 a film of her life—Mary Harron's "I Shot Andy Warhol—appeared and some feminists still claim her as a hero of the cause. But she is also remembered as a key player in the history of contemporary art. The shooting was a creative as well as a medical turning point for Warhol. The experience seemed to intensify his own sense that his life was not quite real. "Before I was shot, I always thought that I was more half-there than all-there—I always suspected that I was watching TV instead of living life…Right when I was being shot and ever since, I knew that I was watching television. The channels switch, but it's all television."
Most now agree—even in the midst of the current frenzy—that the shooting marked the start of a steady decline in the quality of Warhol's work. Nothing more vividly demonstrates this decline than two self-portraits, nearly 20 years apart, currently on display at Tate Modern in London. The picture from 1986, the year before his death, shows the now gaunt features in red, topped by his fright wig. It is striking and beautifully composed, but it is a poster, a one-liner. The picture from 1967 is haunting, powerful, with layers of vibrant colour that demand close examination.
When the average cultivated punter now thinks ofa Warhol, they will almost certainly be thinking of a Marilyn Monroe, a Jackie Kennedy, an Elvis Presley, a soup can or even an electric chair made between 1962 and 1968. What they will not be thinking about is the ten portraits from 1980 entitled "Jewish Geniuses"
or his endless pursuit of the rich, famous and powerful as patrons and subjects—Michael Jackson, Mick Jagger, Liza Minnelli, John Lennon, Diana Ross, the Shah of Iran. One thing nobody can really claim Warhol has in common with Picasso is lifelong inspiration and creativity. After the shooting he slowly ground to an aesthetic halt.
But perhaps it can be said that Warhol's legacy is more wide-ranging than Picasso's. Arthur Danto's conviction is that he changed everything he touched, that his influence is universal. "Even Picasso was a more limited kind of figure, a great artist for sure, but he was an inventor of styles. I think what Andy was was an inventor of no styles at all."
Warhol's posture of opposition to meaning and the idea of the specialness of art was constantly being extended. In movies he subverted all artifice, not just by showing a man sleeping, but, later, by filming random scenes of anti-acting by his cast of "superstars". In "A Novel" (1968) he took apart fiction by using straight transcriptions of the conversational ramblings of his friends. And, by adopting the Velvet Underground, he created the most savagely nihilistic rock band of them all. He even took on the philosophers—"The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again)" (1975) consists of transcriptions of his spoken thoughts. But, though such things undoubtedly leave traces in the culture, they are dead ends in ways in which his best paintings were not. Nobody needs to do a mindlessly transcribed novel again or even read one, but many need to plunder the genuine riches of the pre-shooting Warhols.
Finally, Julian Stallabrass makes a crucial point about Warhol's current stature. "You know this work really engages people in the art world. Maybe what has really changed in the last few years is that people have been finding out, essentially through publishing their own works on social networking sites, that making things that look a bit like art isn't at all hard and that is very demystifying and empowering."
Warhol now endorses a way of life. One simple technology—silk-screen printing—dominated his career. But it was enough to show today's technology-laden, hyper-connected youth that they could do it too. With the instant publication of digital pictures and videos, anybody can become a cyber-Warhol, swimming in the great ocean that pop imagery has become. Apple's Photo Booth software reduces the whole thing to a single click—just by selecting "pop art" under "effects" you can change your face into a very credible Warhol multiple self-portrait. Andy, in death, is a generation's mentor.
The Andy Warhol Foundation and the market may want him to be Leonardo or Picasso, but the young want him to be what Arthur Danto says he is, the overthrower of all such pretensions. It is in this balance of aspirations that Warhol, the god of contemporary art, now exists. In time this phase will pass and the idea that Warhol is a greater artist than, say, Robert Rauschenberg or Jackson Pollock will be seen as the absurdity that it is. The bubble will burst, prices will fall and the drinker of all that Campbell's soup will be restored to his rightful place—as a briefly brilliant and very poignant recorder of the dazzling surface of where we are now.
The intellectual excitement of his attempt to destroy meaning is also close to its sell-by date. Prompted by Warhol, conceptualism—art driven by ideas rather than sensuous and emotional engagement—has ruled the art world for more than 20 years. It is a machine aesthetic, a desire to make art that is beyond human, and Andy always wanted to be a machine. But, though all art is in constant, self-questioning flux, one thing never changes—the longing to define, synthesise and express the human condition. In the absence of religion, it is art's job to do this. For six years, despite his claims to the contrary, Warhol was an artist, a generator of meanings. Valerie Solanas and his own social ambitions put an end to this. Now it is time for us, and the market, to adjust to the fact that it is over.
Bryan Appleyard is an award-winning feature writer for the Sunday Times. His latest book, "The Brain is Wider than the Sky", is out now.


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Going to work after mental health issues
If you've had a mental health problem and been off or out of work, you may worry about going back.
You may be concerned about how your colleagues will react, for example, or that you won't be able to cope.
But most people find that going back to work is a positive step, and support is available to help ease your way back in.
Going back to work after taking sick leave
If your job is still open for you, consider talking to your GP before going back to work. Then you can arrange a meeting with your employer or occupational health adviser.
You can discuss anything that concerns you about returning to work, including any recommendations from your GP.
You may wish to ask about:
- flexible hours - you might like to return part-time, for example, or start later in the day if you're sleepy from medication in the mornings
- support from a colleague in the short or long term
- a place you can go for a break when needed
Support for people with mental health problems
Reasonable adjustments
By law, employers must make "reasonable adjustments" for workers with disabilities or long-term physical or mental conditions.
This could mean giving someone with social anxiety their own desk rather than expecting them to hot desk, for example.
See more about reasonable adjustments.
Access to Work
If you need extra help beyond reasonable adjustments, you can apply for an Access to Work grant. These pay for practical support, such as counselling, so you can carry on doing your job or start a new one.
Find out about Access to Work.
Fit for Work
Fit for Work offers free advice to people with a health problem who want to stay in or get back to work.
Visit the Fit for Work Advice Hub.
Looking for a new job
If you're unemployed and want to get back into work, staff at your local Jobcentre Plus can help. If you have ongoing mental health issues, ask to speak to their disability employment adviser.
If you have a mental health worker, they can also tell you about the support available to help people with mental health problems get back to work.
Before you speak to anyone, think about:
- where you would like to work
- what kind of work you would like to do
- what type of support you may need
- your financial situation, including any benefits you're getting
A full-time paid job isn't the only option open to you. There are other possibilities that may suit you, including part-time work or volunteering.
Volunteering is a popular way of getting back into work. Helping other people in need is great for your self-esteem and can take your mind off your own worries.
Plus, volunteer work can improve your chances of getting a paid job when you're ready and, until then, you can carry on claiming your benefits.
Find out more about how to volunteer.
Your rights and the law
Some people worry that when they apply for a job, they will be discriminated against if they admit that they have, or have had, mental or emotional health problems.
But it's illegal for employers to ask health or health-related questions before making a job offer.
It's also illegal to discriminate against people with any kind of health condition or disability, including mental health issues.
How work benefits your mental health
People usually find going back to work after a period of mental illness a positive experience.
Among other things, work can give you:
- a sense of identity and purpose
- the chance to build new friendships
- better financial security
- the feeling that you're playing an active part in society
More information
- GOV.UK has advice on when mental health becomes a disability
- see tips on preparing for your return to work on the Mind website
Article provided by NHS Choices
Record managed by Oxfordshire Family Information Service

subset: commoncrawl


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CONVERSATION With…the Cheshire Cat From Wonderland…About Virtual Friendships in Older Age
Over the Hill on the Yelllow Brick Road, I saw a grinning cat sitting in a tree. A moment later, the cat disappeared. The next moment, he appeared on the top of a bush. Then strangely, his body faded. All that remained was his smile and his eyes. Was it possible he was the Cheshire Cat from the story of Alice in Wonderland? I had to ask!
Hey—are you—
CHESIRE CAT: Yes I am. The Cheshire Cat.
But, you live in Wonderland. What are you doing here? How did you get Over the Hill on the Yellow Brick Road?
CHESHIRE CAT: How does anyone ever get anywhere? With great difficulty.
I suppose.
CHESHIRE CAT: But I just had to come. Like the rest of you here, I'm growing older and trying to figure out where I belong in the world. I'm having trouble relating to the Mad Hatter, the White Rabbit, and the others the way I used to. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, I'm changing. I'm obsessing with my age.
That's how I ended up Over the Hill on the Yellow Brick Road. I was looking for friends who understood what I was going through. I wasn't sure where or how I'd find them, but I felt compelled to look.
CHESHIRE CAT: I'm looking for others, like me, who can appear and disappear in older age.
Oh. Well, I'm sorry I can't help you. I don't do that.
CHESHIRE CAT: Of course you do.
What? How?
CHESHIRE CAT: You're a blogger. And so are most of the others who are reading my words right now. Your relationships with each other appear and disappear with a tap of an electronic device. As soon as your phones or computers are turned off, you're gone. And as soon as you return to the internet, you appear.
You know, you're right—
CHESHIRE CAT: The question is, if your blogger friends are virtual, are they real?
Well, you appear and disappear, and you're real.
CHESHIRE CAT: Fair point. But how can you be sure?
Because though I can only see your grin and your eyes at the moment, I feel your spirit as you speak. The same is true with my virtual blogging community.
CHESHIRE CAT: Hmmm…Anything else?
Well, when I don't have access to the internet, I'm sad. I miss my virtual friends.
CHESHIRE CAT: Hmm. Do say more.
Since virtual bloggers and I communicate through posts and comment sections, we say exactly what we want to say, very concisely. No small talk. And we speak from our hearts.
CHESHIRE CAT: Intriguing.
Also- I never worry about the way I look when I communicate with virtual friends. I don't have to clean my house before I speak to them. I don't have to make special appointments to get together and then change my schedule around. We appear to each other, and disappear, whenever we're ready.
CHESHIRE CAT: Increasingly interesting…
And, if I can't leave home due to health issues or other problems, my virtual community is still there. We communicate the way we always do. So, though I have never met these amazing people in the flesh, they MUST BE REAL.
CHESHIRE CAT: It's a distinct possibility. In that case…when I return to Wonderland, might I join your virtual community? May I follow your blog?
I would love that.
CHESHIRE CAT: Thank you.
So…I guess you're saying…you don't think it's insane that I call a virtual community of people, who appear and disappear, my friends?
CHESHIRE CAT: Do I think it's insane? Well…you know what they say in Wonderland. We're all mad.


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The U.S. unemployment rate fell last month to its lowest level in more than two and a half years, as employers stepped up hiring in response to the slowly improving economy.
The Labor Department says the unemployment rate dropped sharply to 8.6 percent last month, down from 9 percent in October.
The rate hasn't been that low since March 2009, during the depths of the recession.
Employers added 120,000 jobs last month. And the previous two months were revised up to show that 72,000 more jobs added the fourth straight month the government revised prior months higher.
Still, one reason the unemployment rate fell so much was because roughly 315,000 people gave up looking for work and were no longer counted as unemployed.


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Sao was discovered Aug. 14, 2002 by Tommy Grav, Matthew J. Holman, John J. Kavelaars, Wesley C. Fraser, and Dan Milisavljevic using images taken by the 4.0-m Blanco telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile and the 3.6-m Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope in Hawaii. Multiple images were digitally combined until stars appeared as streaks, while the moons appeared as points of light.
Sao, Laomedeia and Halimede were discovered through the use of Earth-based telescopes -- this was the first time a Neptunian moon discovery had occurred by telescope since the discovery of Nereid in 1949 by Gerard Kuiper.
Sao is one of three tiny moons (ranging in size from 18 to 24 miles—or 30 to 40 km) of Neptune discovered in 2002 using innovative ground-based telescope techniques. (The other moons discovered were Laomedeia and Halimede.) The moons are so distant and so small they are about 100 million times fainter than can be seen with the unaided eye. The moons were missed by the Voyager 2 spacecraft in 1989 because they are so faint and distant from Neptune.
Sao is considered an irregular satellite because of its distant, eccentric orbit around Neptune. Like most irregular satellites of the giant planets in our outer solar system, Sao most likely formed after a collision between a larger moon and a comet or an asteroid. Sao and Laomedeia have prograde orbits, which means they orbit in the same direction as Neptune's rotation. Halimede has a retrograde orbit, which means Halimede orbits in the opposite direction of Neptune's rotation.
Very little is known about Sao. Scientists are trying to learn more about it and its irregular sisters because they offer a glimpse of the conditions at the time the planets in our solar system were forming billions of years ago.
Moons of Neptune are named for characters from Greek or Roman mythology associated with Neptune or Poseidon, or the oceans. Irregular satellites are named for the Nereids, daughters of Nereus and Doris and the attendants of Neptune.


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The Massachusetts Department of Correction plans to employ drug-sniffing dogs to search visitors at prison entrances in a new attempt to stem the flow of illegal substances and remove "negative temptations" to inmates.
The initiative, announced in a letter to the department's 11,500 inmates and a YouTube video earlier this month, has sparked strong opposition from families, civil libertarians, and prisoner advocates, who say it will discourage relatives from visiting loved ones in prison. They also say it unfairly paints visitors as the sole sources of prisoner drug problems.
"I don't like this at all,'' said Robin Hester of Pawtucket, R.I., who visits her boyfriend monthly at MCI-Norfolk, a medium-security facility. "I don't want to be sniffed by dogs. I didn't break any laws. I don't have a record. Why should I be subjected to that?"
In the YouTube video announcing the random K-9 search, Deputy Commissioner Peter A. Pepe Jr. emphasized the department's long-term goal of returning prisoners to their communities sober and clean. He said that strides made by prisons' substance abuse and education programs are undermined when drugs are smuggled inside and prisoners are released into society unable to cope with the normal stresses of life.
"Drug use is one of the root causes of criminal activity,'' he said in the video. "The continued use of drugs in prison is illegal. It severely impacts our reentry efforts."
According to the department, there were 107 incidents involving drugs introduced to the prison system by visitors from January 2011 through June 2012. Forty-nine percent were trafficked by individuals identified as one-time visitors, whom the department suspects of coming solely to bring drugs, said the department's spokesman, Terrel Harris.
MCI-Shirley had 34 such incidents, the highest in the 17-facility prison system. Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center had 18, followed by MCI-Framingham and MCI-Concord, which each had 12.
Pepe said the prisons currently search inmates, test them, and use dogs to search for drugs inside the facility. The new dog searches at prison entrances, which will be done randomly, are one more weapon in its arsenal against drugs, the department said.
"While we realize that visits are an extremely important part of your lives during your incarceration, the department will not allow your reentry and treatment efforts to be derailed by illicit activities,'' Commissioner Luis S. Spencer wrote in the letter to inmates and staff. "It is our duty to do everything in our power to keep you and correctional staff safe from harm."
In the YouTube video, a black Labrador retriever guided by a guard appears in a waiting area and sniffs at the chairs and lockers. If the dog detects drugs, it is trained to sit down and press its nose to the object and location, a narrator says.
If the dog points to a visitor, that person will be asked to consent to a thorough search by a prison staff member. If drugs are discovered, the visitor may face criminal prosecution and be barred from the prison facilities. The visitor will be denied entry into the prison if he or she refuses the search and will be immediately banned from all correctional facilities, the letter said.
Advocates who work on behalf of inmates say they have contacted the department and are demanding answers to questions about whether program volunteers, guards, and others who work in prisons will also be subjected to the random narcotics dog search.
"I know the department has worked hard to root out the drugs that are coming in, and I'm 100 percent convinced that it is not coming in through visitors alone,'' said Leslie Walker, executive director of Prisoners' Legal Services of Massachusetts. "It's also coming in through staff. And if you are going to subject children and the elderly to this kind of humiliating treatment, then I think they should be subjecting staff to it, as well."
Harris said only people listed on inmates' rosters of approved visitors — such as friends, families, and attorneys — will face the random searches. Prison program volunteers and guards will not be randomly searched under the new policy, he said.
Matthew R. Segal, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, said the proposed policy could violate visitors' Fourth Amendment rights that protect against unreasonable search and seizures. In certain circumstances, it may interfere with the rights of people they visit, he said.
"This is a terrible idea, and it raises serious legal problems,'' Segal said.
The Rev. George Walters-Sleyon, a pastor who heads the Roxbury-based Center for Church and Prison, said he is holding a rally in front of the State House Wednesday morning to protest the proposed change, which he argues runs counter to the department's objectives.
He said the random drug searches at prison entrances would reduce visits by families and relatives, some of whom could have intense fears of dogs. If fewer families visit, he said, inmates are at risk of loneliness and may return to the public in worse shape than when they went in.
"This fundamentally undermines every form of adequate reintegration,'' said Walters-Sleyon.
Advocates and other residents also contend that they are already subjected to intense searches by guards when they visit prison.
"My visits are already limited,'' said one Dorchester woman who asked not to be identified to protect her privacy. She said she sometimes takes the commuter rail to visit her boyfriend at MCI-Concord. "I don't go up there as much. But if I have to be sniffed by a dog, forget about it."
Meghan Irons can be reached at email@example.com. Follow her on Twitter @meghanirons.


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"I heard a sound when I was a child," Elvis Perkins sings in "It's Only Me," a typically introspective folk-pop number from this debut album. Perkins probably heard lots of sounds as a child: his dad was Anthony Perkins (perhaps best known as Norman Bates in Psycho) and his mom was the fashion photographer Berry Berenson. (His brother Oz, who drums on Ash Wednesday, is also in show biz; he played Reese Witherspoon's dorky law-school peer in Legally Blonde.) Yet Ash Wednesday is far from a celebration of the Hollywood high life — it documents the periods shortly preceding and following Berenson's death on September 11, 2001, when she was on board American Airlines Flight 11 out of Logan. "It's a Sad World After All" is the title of one cut here and a description of them all. If you're not in the mood for it, Perkins's uncut melancholy can be a lot to swallow. Still, this is one of the prettiest bummers around.
Elvis Perkins + Patrick Watson | Great Scott, 1222 Comm Ave, Allston | February 27 | 617.566.9014
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(visited by Julian Nikadie)
11-Feb-2004 -- This confluence is in the Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park - which is part of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area.
The confluence is about 4 km WSW of Lake Marion, which is the closest access point.
I started the confluence visit by walking around Lake St Clair and then up the track to Lake Marion, where I camped for the night.
I began my walk out to the confluence before 6 am, and it was not until 12:30 pm that I got there.
Just 200 metres before I reached the confluence I was walking through very thick scrub - but fortunately this opened up to beautiful myrtle forest which made finding and photographing the confluence far more enjoyable.
As the photos show, the confluence is under heavy tree cover, so my GPS receiver was switching between satellites - as a result I would be standing at one point and being told to move 2 m to the right, which I would do only to be told to move 2 m to the left! The "all zeros" shot eluded me, but I did get very close.
It wasn't until 6:00 pm that I got back to my main pack - too late for the walk back to Narcissus Hut before dark as initially planned, but as I didn't want to camp at Lake Marion again I decided to move as quickly as I could - fortunately I managed to reach the hut soon after 8:00 pm, while it was still light.
All up, the walk from Lake Marion out to the confluence and back to the hut took over 14 hours, and with an 8 hour walk to get to Lake Marion the day before, I put in 22 hours of walking ... after spending the night at Narcissus Hut I decided to take the ferry across Lake St Clair to get back to my car.


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DöhlerGroup has acquired the fruit processing and flavor unit of Delta Aromatic (DELRO) in order to increase its proximity to customers in Africa and the Middle East as well as deliver products quickly and cost-effectively.
DELRO, an Egyptian specialist for fruit and vegetable ingredients with a portfolio of mango, white guava, strawberry, apricot and tomato, will become part of the DöhlerGroup and will serve as the production and service hub for markets in Africa and the Middle East. Meanwhile, Delta Aromatic's fragrance and agriculture business units are not part of the acquisition agreement and will be operated as independent company.
The new company name of the production site in Cairo will be: Döhler Egypt for the Production of Natural Fruit & Beverage Ingredients S.A.E. DELRO's management team will remain on board and will lead the newly formed Döhler Egypt.
The DöhlerGroup, headquartered in Darmstadt, Germany, has 23 production and 24 application centers, 50 sales offices and sales activities in over 130 countries. Döhler Egypt is the first Döhler production site on the African continent and it says the regional market offers many advantages including premium natural resources as well as Egypt´s membership of the free trade zones, Common Market for Eastern and South Africa (COMESA) for the Eastern and Southern African markets and Greater Arab Free Trade Area (GAFTA) for the Arab market.


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You're reading an outdated article. Please go to the recent issues to find up-to-date content.
There are times when an idea seems to take on a life of its own, and bonding of swimming pool water seems to be one of those. This idea was proposed for the 2005 National Electrical Code (NEC), passed at the proposal stage and was soundly rejected at the comment stage. For the 2008 NEC, it was rejected at the proposal stage. Code-Making Panel 17 stated, "The submitter has not provided adequate substantiation. There are issues with conductivity of water, changes with water temperature, current flow, size of conductors, etc., that need to be addressed." The submitter returned at the comment stage with substantiation, and the panel accepted the proposed text for the 2008 NEC, so "bonding of pool water" will become part of the 2008 Article 680.
The text proposed for the 2005 NEC was much more extensive than the text proposed and accepted for the 2008 NEC. For the 2005 NEC, the text read, "680.26(B)(6). Pool Water. The pool water shall be effectively bonded. Pool shells made of reinforced concrete in which the water is in direct contact with the concrete and the reinforcing steel is utilized as the common bonding grid shall be considered to effectively bond the water. If non-conducting or non-reinforced material is used to form the pool shell or liner, bonding shall be accomplished via the use of metallic parts, plumbing, lighting brackets and shells, ladders, electrodes, etc. in continuous contact with the water. The metal shall be copper, brass, bronze, or other corrosion- resistant material or may be chrome plated. Metallic parts used for bonding shall have a minimum surface area in contact with the water of 200 square centimeters. Semi-conducting material may be used if the resistivity of such material is less than 0.1 ohm-centimeters. Semi-conducting material shall have a minimum of 0.5 square meters in contact with the pool water at each location and encapsulate copper conductor evenly distributed throughout. The encapsulated copper conductor shall have a total electrical area of at least 16,500 circular mils and have terminations of at least 8 AWG. Point of bonding with the pool water shall be made at no more than 4 meters distance around the circumference of the pool."
The accepted text for the 2008 NEC reads, "680.26(C). Pool Water. An intentional bond of a minimum conductive surface area of 5806 mm2 (9 in2) shall be installed in contact with the pool water. This bond shall be permitted to consist of parts that are required to be bonded in 680.26(B)."
The accompanying text reads, "Extensive testing clearly substantiates that the potential for voltage gradient is present in pools where the pool water is not bonded via metal parts in the pool. With this knowledge and confirmation of a voltage gradient hazard, the CMP must address the issue. Test results, handed out at the Proposal Meeting, show that the presence of a touch potential exists in all areas of the pool and that the proposed solution for bonding pool water will essentially reduce that potential to zero. While the proposed solution may not be the only solution, it meets the NEC criteria of providing minimum protection for the public. The test report in its entirety has been submitted to this Comment for further review by the Panel Members. Typically, pool water is considered electrically conductive due to dissolved chemicals. Although the conductivity will vary with the temperature, the change in conductivity for all practical purposes is not a factor in the application of a proposed solution. Again, the proposed solution meets the NEC criteria of providing minimum protection for the public and should be viewed as a protection measure compared to having no protection.
"In the proposed solution, the size of bonding conductor is not specified. This is in line with several Bonded Parts described in 680.26(B). In 680.26(B)(1), (B)(2), (B)(3), and (B)(5), use of a minimum of #8 AWG size wire is implied as specified in 680.26(B)(4) and 680.26(C). In the stray voltage field, ground currents are rarely determined due to measurement difficulties and inaccuracies. On the other hand, resulting voltage gradients (stray voltages), however, are very easy to measure and can be directly used to analyze stray voltage problems and their mitigation. As evidenced by the test report, the proposed solution is based on such stray voltage measurements around a swimming pool."
There was extensive background and support information provided in the submitter's substantiation for the comment that Panel 17 accepted.
The issues on equipotential bonding grids and pool water bonding are interesting and challenging for the pool industry, and it looks like controversy will continue for the 2008 NEC. EC
ODE is a staff engineering associate at Underwriters Laboratories Inc., in Research Triangle Park, N.C. He can be reached at 919.549.1726 or at [email protected].
About The Author
ODE is a retired lead engineering instructor at Underwriters Laboratories and is owner of Southwest Electrical Training and Consulting. Contact him at 919.949.2576 and [email protected].


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Top Gear: Stunt School Revolution Pro!
Top Gear SSR Proplay.google.com.supersonic.tgssr_pro
With incredible visuals, loads of outrageous cars, iconic world locations, endless and mostly ridiculous customizations and truly unbelievable stunts, it's everything you'd expect from the Top Gear team. !
Want to balloon hop a motor home to clear the Grand Canyon? Use your sports car and escape Alcatraz by leaping as far as you can and landing on a barge? Speed through a roller-coaster on a New York skyscraper with a cow on your pickup? You can do all this and more in Top Gear: Stunt School Revolution.
- Endless vehicle customisations to tweak your car performance to any scenario
- A fantastically responsive, intuitive driving experience
- Fantastic iconic locations from around the world – Grand Canyon, Alcatraz, Sydney Harbour, New York, Moscow, London and China
- Challenge your friends to beat your high scores on each stunt and tell everyone about it on Facebook and Twitter
- Additional in-app purchases are available for extra Gold Nuts, Permits and Stig Dollars if you can't wait.
- To celebrate the upcoming new series of Top Gear:
- Collect 100 cogs during June to unlock a classic Top Gear car in game!
- Bug Fixes
Screenshots :


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Ooops, looks like Christmas distracted me so much I didn't get around to doing the traditional Christmas post. Well, our old friends know that for me, Christmas goes right on up through the 6th, and last year's post is much the same as what I would have posted this year, although I did find "Merry Christmas from Chiron Beta Prime" with an American Sign Language interpretation by Stephen Torrence, and Mark Evanier has posted a photo of the setting of his wonderful Mel Tormé story, for those who've never seen the Farmer's Market in Hollywood.
And thanks to Digby for digging up this old classic on the War on Christmas. (Yes, there is a war on Christmas, and Bill O'Reilly is its general.)
Michael Moore tells you everything you really need to know about economics: "Celebrating the Prince of Peace in the Land of Guns [...] Clearly, we are no longer our brother's and sister's keeper. You get sick and can't afford the operation? Not my problem. The bank has foreclosed on your home? Not my problem. Can't afford to go to college? Not my problem. And yet, it all sooner or later becomes our problem, doesn't it? Take away too many safety nets and everyone starts to feel the impact. Do you want to live in that kind of society, one where you will then have a legitimate reason to be in fear? I don't."
EU accuses Samsung of patent abuse in Apple lawsuits
The Majority Report: Sam Seder's interview with Chrystia Freeland on Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else.
Ten Reasons Why the Chained CPI Is Terrible Policy
Atrios: "But They Will Always Smash It On The Floor [...] But Republicans will inevitably see a balanced budget as an opportunity to give money to rich people (tax cuts and crony capitalism). The reward for liberals for this well done very important work? Tax cuts for rich people and unpaid for disastrous wars. Liberals should spend their time in office figuring out how to implement a sticky liberal agenda, one which is hard to dislodge, not figuring out how to create a pot of money for Republicans to steal when it is their turn."
"There's Another No Work Option: Laid Off [...] This isn't really mysterious stuff. Someone is 61, has a moderate disability, and loses his/her job. There is no work option." And yet, people act like the only reason you might not get a new job is that you'd rather skive off and collect that juicy disability check.
RIP Jack Klugman, last of the 12 Angry Men, who to some of us will always be Oscar Madison, (even though the first death notice I saw for him mentioned only Quincy); actor, and hero who beat Orrin Hatch.
Snow pic from Ruth Calvo.
An Irish boy band that rocks old school - The Strypes, with their first original track, "Blue Collar Jane." Of course, they do covers, too.
Damn You All to Hell. {A letter from Tom Hanks.}
Strax the Sontaran sings Christmas songs. (I have no idea what "The Red Red Robin" is doing in there.)
Watch Sita Sings the Blues - a free gift from the creator.
Posted, of course, while listening to Brian Brink's amazing performance of "The Carol of the Bells".


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The best of humanity often emerges amidst the very worst
Michael Wells writes in with a fascinating story from Korea.
They have their own Arc de Triomphe, which is just like the one in Paris, only taller. They have a brewery that they bought in Britain and meticulously reassembled. A dead man is their eternal president. The EU sends them footballs. And every February, under threat of imprisonment, they celebrate the birthday of a small pudgy man in a jumpsuit. Natural wonders inevitably follow.
North Korea's psychedelic Stalinism has proved extremely durable, surviving even mass starvation and the country's well-deserved status as planetary pariah. But there are signs that the regime may finally be losing its grip.
President Bush's recent visit has overshadowed an amazing story. A man called Yoo Tae Jun escaped from North Korea in 1998 with his 3-year-old son. In 2000 he went back in for his wife! He was captured and imprisoned, but escaped again, turning up in South Korea on February 9. The Korea Times reported that he rode on top of trains and disguised himself as a soldier in order to escape. Think of it. Consider what it would take to escape from a place like North Korea, then imagine going back in and doing it all over again. Now contrast this amazing level of courage and resourcefulness with Robert Fisk's thank-you-sir-may-I-have-another response to barbarism. Fisk would take his few morsels of food and thank the Dear Leader for his mercy. Yoo Tae Jun is the Anti-Fisk.
But Yoo Tae Jun is by no means the only defector. According to a recent AP story, defections from North Korea have nearly doubled every year since 1998, and there may be thousands more defectors in China. 74 defectors have arrived in the south so far this year. Pyongyang has increased the military presence along the northern border, but trying to feed them will be a major strain. The situation is beginning to look like Eastern Europe in 1989, when a trickle of defectors quickly became a flood. If China isn't stopping them, North Korea could crumble pretty quickly.
The residue from that regime will be a sickening mess, but if there are more people like Yoo Tae Jun north of the DMZ, they'll come through it.


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- City Fajr Shuruq Duhr Asr Magrib Isha
- Dubai 05:27 06:41 12:35 15:52 18:22 19:36
Penelope Cruz is reportedly pregnant.
The 'All The Pretty Horses' actress and her 'Skyfall' actor husband Javier Bardem are thought to be expecting a sibling for their two-year-old son Leonardo, according to the New York Post's Page Six.
The couple - who had been friends for years - started dating in 2007 and married in early July 2010 in an intimate ceremony at a friend's home in the Bahamas.
Penelope, 43, has previously spoken out about how motherhood has transformed her life.
She said: "From the first second, you feel so much love.
"It is a revolutionary experience. That's the best way I can describe it. It transforms you completely, in a second. Nature is very wise and gives you nine months to prepare, but in that moment, when you see that face, you are transformed forever."
She is also determined to keep her kids out of the public eye, despite hers and 43-year-old Javier's successful careers.
She explained: "I want my son and my kids - if I have more - to grow up in a way that is as anonymous as possible.
"The fact that his father and I have chosen to do the work we do doesn't give anybody the right to invade our privacy."
Follow Emirates 24|7 on Google News.


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Game 161: Win
Mets 13 Nationals 0
It was a blowout, and it was a win, but let's look at the most important issues, considering the Mets' postseason.
Have Tom Glavine pitch well enough to warrant being a #2 playoff starter … check.
Get Julio Franco and Ramon Castro some at-bats to get them into a groove and be worthwhile October pinch-hitters … check.
Tell Carlos Beltran to take even more pitches and draw some walks to put ducks on the pond for Carlos Delgado, Wright, et al … check
Get Shawn Green and Endy Chavez into the groove, so that if Cliffy isn't available, we're still OK … check.
Get Chris Woodward some at-bats so he isn't rusty … check.
So all the 161st game postseason preparation goals were met, and the team won a laugher, to boot.
Most important was the Glavine issue; facing a last-place team with a very so-so offense, Glavine needed to pitch well. Had he struggled in the least bit against the woeful Nationals, we'd be in deep doo-doo. As it was, he not only pitched well, he came as close to dominating as Glavine is going to do against anyone, shutting out the Nats in six innings, walking none and allowing only three hits. Also important, he threw only 72 pitches — an average of 12 per inning (that is outstanding efficiency, by the way) — and 49 of those for strikes. Though he easily could have pitched another two innings at least, and possibly finished out a complete-game shutout, Mr. Willie did the right thing by pulling him after six. This way, Tommy came out of the game on top, brimming with confidence and with a very good taste in his mouth. Now that Pedro is gone for 2006 (and much of 2007), it is absolutely vital for Glavine to recapture the magic that made him a Cy Young Award winner in Atlanta, if only for the month of October. He needs to be as sharp as he was this evening, if the Mets are to get to the World Series. He must.
While Glavine was pitching lights out, the offense suddenly woke up. Granted, it was against the worst pitching team in the NL, but we'll take it. Now is as good a time as any for the Mets offense to get into gear.
Leading the way was, of all people, 48-year-old Julio Franco, who was a triple short of hitting for the cycle, and drove in five runs. Endy Chavez went 2-5 with a walk and three runs scored, and Carlos Beltran walked three times, had one hit, and scored all four times he reached base.
And, Shawn Green broke out, going 2-4 with 3 runs scored and 3 RBI. If you paid attention to my last few posts, I mentioned that Green seemed to be seeing the ball well and was due to break out at any moment. I really like it when I'm right about some things ;-). Right now is a great time for Green to get into a hot streak. While we can't expect him to carry the team, he's not that far removed from hot streaks where he goes absolutely ballistic, and looks like the Jewish Babe Ruth. He had one of those back in May, when he hit .374 for the month. Though he's probably no longer the guy who once hit four home runs and 19 total bases in a game, he is still able to get on the kind of hot streak that can do some damage, especially in the already potent Mets lineup.
Before the game it was announced that Frank Robinson would not return to manage the Nats in 2007. Robinson is without a doubt one of the icons of the game, and one of the few men who you could say, is most interested in preserving the integrity, respect, and purity of baseball above all else. He took the position of Montreal Expos manager five years ago partially because he wanted another shot to manage, and mostly because Baseball asked him to do it. Under the most dire circumstances — a team without an owner, and on the brink of dissolving at any moment — he did his best to make his teams as competitive as possible, despite a lack of resources and interest, and without complaints. My wife had a great point: considering his respect and commitment for the game, and his accomplishments, wouldn't he make a great commissioner of baseball? The thought never occurred to me, but she has a worthwhile point. Of course, it would never happen, as the commissioner needs to be a puppet and mouthpiece for the owners to pit against Donald Fehr and the MLBPA. However, if the powers that be really cared about baseball, and wanted to put a good, neutral man in the position — one who would make ALL decisions based on what was best for the game (as opposed to the pockets of the players or the owners), then Frank Robinson might be a fantastic nomination for a short list of candidates. MLB has not had such a leader since the days of Fay Vincent and Bart Giamatti, and sadly, likely never will again. But if there's a shred of possibility that baseball could have a true leader, rather than an egocentric foil for Don Fehr, here's one vote for Robinson.
Probably lost in the postgame comments was a remark by Julio Franco, interviewed by SNY. He was asked if he realized he was a triple away from hitting for the cycle. He answered that he did know he needed a triple, but with a ten-run lead, he wasn't about to start swinging from his heels in search of a personal milestone. He said something to the effect of, "… I have too much respect for the game … we were up by ten, so I take the first pitch in my at-bats … ". This was coming from an old-time ballplayer exuding old-time respect for the game and more importantly, for his opponent. He might also have been verbally slapping the Braves for their swing-from-the-heels approach after gaining an equally insurmountable lead against the Mets earlier in the week. No doubt Franco took offense against his former Atlanta teammates, who were clearly looking to embarass the Mets and pad their own stats in their 12-0 pounding and 13-1 massacre in back to back games on September 26th and 27th.
Speaking of that shellacking on the 26th, Oliver Perez will get the start in the final game of the season, stepping in for Steve Trachsel, who is returning home to San Diego for personal reasons. Hopefully, all is OK with Trax's family, and we wish him the best. And if he can't rejoin the Mets for a few days, so be it … there are much more important things in life than a few baseball games — even if it's the playoffs.


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Forbidden Friday: Lust
By BY
If you've got a hot date tonight, you'll definitely want to read the following tidbits from our book Forbidden Knowledge: A Wickedly Smart Guide to History's Naughtiest Bits -- and then get yourself to an exotic foods market:
World's Strangest Aphrodisiacs
Sometimes you can have too much of a wood -- er, good -- thing. In the case of an unfortunate group of French Foreign Legion soldiers in North Africa, frog legs proved to be such an effective enhancer of "erectile function" that priapism -- a prolonged, painful erection that will not go away -- ensued. Subsequently, researchers from American universities found that the frog legs contained enormous amounts of cantharidin, better known as Spanish fly. It turned out the frogs had been eating meloid beetles, one of the main sources of the legendary aphrodisiac, eventually making things hard for the soldiers.
Two more love potions after the hump -- er, jump.
Sweet potatoes: Shortly after Columbus made landfall in 1492, the natives of Hispaniola introduced him to the sweet potato, a member of the morning glory family. Spanish colonizers soon spread the sweet potato lovin' to Asia and Europe, the popularity to cultivate it driven in part by its reputation as an aphrodisiac. In Health's Improvement, a medical guide from 1595, Dr. Thomas Muffett wrote that sweet potatoes increase not only libido, but apparently also the incidence of flatulence, claiming that they "nourish mightily... engendering much flesh, blood, and seed, but withal encreasing wind and lust."
Unagi: Served raw in sushi or cooked as part of an udon (noodle) dish, sea eel, or unagi, is reputed in Japan to be an aphrodisiac. The association likely springs from a rather obvious similarity between the shape of the eel and, as usual, an erect penis. Of course, there might be some science behind the belief as well. Unagi is high in vitamin A, which may help sexual function. Although unagi is an increasingly popular item on American sushi menus, ost diners are unaware of its erotic associations in Japanese cuisine.


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Battleship Texas Dry Berth Design Contract Signed
Oct. 29, 2010
Media Contact: TPWD News, Business Hours, 512-389-8030
Note: This item is more than 13 years old. Please take the publication date into consideration for any date references.
AUSTIN – In a major step toward long-term preservation of the Battleship Texas, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department has signed a contract with AECOM USA Group, Inc. – a globally recognized architectural and engineering firm – to design a permanent dry berth for the historic vessel before time and the elements scuttle the ship.
The 1914-vintage battleship, a veteran of both world wars, is the last of its kind. She's been moored at the San Jacinto Battleground since 1948. Her hull was last repaired in the late 1980s and has since become dangerously weakened from years of exposure to the brackish water of the Houston Ship Channel.
"The dry berthing of the Texas is the most complex project ever undertaken by this department," said TPWD project manager Neil Thomas. "The design and construction will be a very large civil engineering project. And the age and condition of the ship, which is a National Historic Landmark, adds a challenging naval architectural component as well. All these factors combine to make the project absolutely unique."
In 2007, as part of Proposition 4, voters approved a bond package that included $25 million to dry-berth the battleship. After TPWD conducted engineering studies and developed a project plan as directed by the 80th Legislature, the Legislative Budget Board approved sale of bonds "contingent on the ship being dry berthed in its current location." Funding for the project includes a $4 million contribution from the Battleship Texas Foundation.
Earlier this year, TPWD selected AECOM – a company with 40,000 employees world-wide – as the most qualified architectural-engineering firm to design the dry berth. Since that time the department has been in negotiations with the firm, a process which included developing the scope of work to be done and the products to be delivered. The contract was signed Oct. 26.
"AECOM is a highly qualified internationally recognized firm with offices in the Houston area and was the winning designer among a number of exceptional entries," said Andy Smith, manager of the Battleship Texas State Historic Site. "TPWD looks forward to working with AECOM over the coming years to devise a long term solution that combines preservation and proper stewardship with a world class display of this historic ship."
Smith said the goal is to save the historic ship, save the taxpayers money and provide a first class experience for the visiting public that is fitting of Texas and her namesake state.
Last June, a rag and a backup pump kept the storied battleship Texas from sinking in its mooring. When park staff noticed the ship resting more than two feet lower in the water than normal, a leak was discovered on the starboard side of the ship near the waterline. A rag was stuffed into the leak until the water could be pumped out.
The just-signed contract calls for AECOM to have its preliminary design completed by spring 2011. Following a federally mandated environmental assessment expected to take about two years, the bidding process for construction of the dry berth and temporary mooring of the Texas is expected to begin in mid-2014 with construction complete by the summer of 2017.


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Swisse AFL Quality Club Program
Creating a quality environment at your football club will be of enormous benefit to your club as a whole and all of your members. Some of the benefits of being involved with this program include:
- Providing an atmosphere that will help to attract new participants, officials and members (and retain those you already have);
- Providing an environment that will be attractive to sponsors and help your club promote itself amongst the community and particularly to your local Council;
- Minimising many risks associated with running a sporting club;
- Creating a best practice guide for your current Committee and all future Committees;
- Participating in a sport that can continue to promote itself as a leading sport where quality is valued highly.
Ultimately, the benefit of being involved in this program is to create a better club!
Your first step to getting involved in the Swisse AFL Quality Club Program is to complete the online Quality Club Assessment, or contact your local District Staff who will provide your club with a QCP Booklet. You can also download the QCP Booklet from the website.
To assist clubs work their way through each level of the Swisse AFL Quality Club program we have a resources library on the WAFC website.
Within this section you will find useful information relating specifically to each of the criteria in the Quality Club Program
You will also find great resources relating to all aspects of club management, including policy templates, sample position descriptions for volunteers, useful fact sheets on liquor licensing regulations and prohibited persons screening.


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Bread no. 34 : brown butter buttermilk biscuits.
Adjustments : substituted in one C of wheat flour. I melted 2 ounces of butter, but only crumbled in another 2 ounces instead of 4 like the recipe called for. I also only used 2 tsp of baking powder instead of 4. This is because I've noticed that when I use wheat flour the "flavor" of the baking powder is more obvious. Sometimes it makes my bread taste chalky. Because there was so much in this recipe I knew it would be noticeable if I didn't cut it down.
Notes : there were so many changes made to this recipe that I can hardly tell what's going on. This is the trouble with just me at home to eat all the bread. I try to "healthy it up" a bit too much.
Review : that said, these biscuits were still good. Great texture and just salty enough. Best biscuits ever? Probably not, but enjoyable.


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Create a Website Account - Manage notification subscriptions, save form progress and more.
View a list of the current open positions with the City of Granbury
Forms to fill out to apply for a current, open position
Applications are only accepted for current, open positions.
If interested in a current, open position, please fill out the generic employee online application along with any additional electronic forms required within the application. Required forms will need to be submitted to firstname.lastname@example.com. (Please Note: Adobe Acrobat Reader may be required to view the additional files) There is also an option to add resumes and/or cover letters to the online application, but they are not required.
If you prefer, printable PDF employment applications can be found here. Upon completion, they can be faxed to (682) 498-8003 or mailed to:
City of GranburyOffice of Human Resources116 West Bridge StreetGranbury, Texas 76048
At any time, blank applications may also be obtained at the reception desk in City Hall.
Located just 25 miles from Fort Worth, Granbury, Texas, is a community ideally situated on the edge of the beautiful Texas Hill Country. It covers 14 square miles with room for growth and is located in Hood County. Granbury prides itself on being cultural, culinary and outdoor mecca, all with a vintage twist. Live theater and musical performances are offered year-round at the recently restored 1886 Granbury Opera House and at the Granbury Live performance hall, both on the Historic Granbury Square. As the first courthouse in Texas to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Square also serves as a charming backdrop to an electric mix of galleries, shops, wineries and eateries.
Lake Granbury is a virtual water playground with a sandy city beach, boating and skiing, fishing, and everything in between. Granbury's extensive trail system is perfect for a leisurely walk or a more active hike or bicycling experience.
Granbury is the county seat for Hood County and has a population approaching 10,000 but serves a county population closer to 60,000. Granbury is a home rule municipality operating under a council-manager form of government. The City has a total yearly budget of over $43 million and employs a staff of 200.
The City of Granbury is an equal opportunity employer.
The City of Granbury offers a competitive starting salary, depending on qualifications and experience. The City participates in the Texas Municipal Retirement System (TMRS) at a 7% employee deposit rate with a municipal matching ratio of 2:1. A full range of leave and insurance benefits is also provided to full time employees.


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Dead German Satellite Will Fall to Earth This Week
This story was updated at 10:55 a.m. ET.
A defunct German satellite is expected to plunge to Earth this week, but exactly when and where the satellite will fall remains a mystery.
The massive German Roentgen Satellite, or ROSAT, is expected to plummet to Earth on Saturday or Sunday (Oct. 22 or 23), though German space officials have also offered a wider re-entry window of between Oct. 21 and Oct. 25. This latest falling satellite comes about a month after a dead NASA climate satellite, called the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS), plunged into the Pacific Ocean in late September.
The 2.4-metric ton X-ray space observatory is expected to break up as it travels through Earth's atmosphere, but some large pieces will likely make it through the intense heat of re-entry. According to German aerospace officials, approximately 1.7 metric tons of satellite debris, consisting primarily of up to 30 large glass and ceramic fragments, could survive the journey through the atmosphere and reach the Earth's surface.
"We don't expect big parts to re-enter, except the mirror and the glass and ceramic parts," Jan Woerner, head of the executive board of the Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR), Germany's space agency, told SPACE.com. "Usually during re-entry, you have rather clear burning of all the elements, but glass and ceramics may survive and may come down in bigger pieces." [Photos: Germany's ROSAT Satellite Falling to Earth]
There is a 1-in-2,000 chance a piece of ROSAT could strike someone on Earth, DLR officials have said. That's a slightly higher risk than the 1-in-3,200 chance of a debris hit NASA gave for the UARS satellite fall.
German aerospace officials are actively tracking ROSAT, but they will not be able to determine precisely when and where the satellite will fall until roughly two hours before it impacts Earth.
ROSAT's orbit extends from the latitudes of 53 degrees north and south, which essentially covers a huge swath of the planet. This means the satellite could fall anywhere stretching from Canada to South America.
Officials at Germany's space agency calculated a 1-in-2,000 chance that someone on Earth will be hit by ROSAT debris, but the risk of serious injury from such an event remains extremely remote.
Originally, the dead satellite was projected to fall to Earth in November, but refined estimates show that the spacecraft will likely make its fiery descent through the atmosphere later this week — earlier than mission controllers previously thought. [6 Biggest Uncontrolled Spacecraft Falls From Space]
"With satellites like ROSAT, you depend on external circumstances," Woerner said. "For instance, solar wind and changes in the atmosphere may change the time of re-entry. We just have to wait and observe."
ROSAT was launched in June 1990 as a joint venture between Germany, the United States, and the United Kingdom. In 1998, the satellite's star tracker failed, which caused its onboard camera to be directly pointed at the sun. This permanently damaged the spacecraft, and ROSAT was officially decommissioned in February 1999.
Since the satellite does not have a propulsion system, and there is no fuel left onboard, the satellite will make an uncontrolled return to Earth.
"We expect public attention because it's a satellite coming down, but in history, we have had much bigger debris fall," Woerner said.
On Sept. 24, NASA's UARS satellite fell uncontrolled toward Earth and plunged into the Pacific Ocean. The event captured the attention of people around the world, and ROSAT's impending re-entry will mark the second time a large spacecraft makes a publicized fall from space within two months.
Officials at Germany's space agency studied NASA and the U.S. Air Force's response to the falling UARS satellite in order to prepare for ROSAT's final return to Earth.
"For us, it was an advantage that UARS fell before," Woerner said. "We know now a little better how to interpret all the data and use the global network. It was an advantage that the satellite came down before so that now we can look at how to deal with ROSAT and how we deal with this in the future."
This story was updated to indicate the mass of ROSAT in metric tons. You can follow SPACE.com staff writer Denise Chow on Twitter @denisechow. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: email@example.com.
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Denise Chow is a former Space.com staff writer who then worked as assistant managing editor at Live Science before moving to NBC News as a science reporter, where she focuses on general science and climate change. She spent two years with Space.com, writing about rocket launches and covering NASA's final three space shuttle missions, before joining the Live Science team in 2013. A Canadian transplant, Denise has a bachelor's degree from the University of Toronto, and a master's degree in journalism from New York University. At NBC News, Denise covers general science and climate change.


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For decades, New York City residents and firms, seeking a haven from high taxes and overregulation, fled to New Jersey, boosting the state's population and its economy. But a steady diet of New York–like tax increases and business-toxic legislation has reversed that trend, sending residents and businesses rushing for the exits and putting Jersey's economy into a tailspin. ("The Mob That Whacked Jersey," Spring 2006.)
After a tumultuous summer, marked by a budget confrontation between new governor Jon Corzine and the state legislature, resulting in an embarrassing shutdown of government for several days and a $1.2-billion-dollar tax hike, Jersey now has even more bad news to deal with. The state's economy was anemic in 2006, adding private-sector jobs at less than one-half the national rate, marking the third straight year that its growth has lagged the nation's. Even worse, much of Jersey's job growth is in low-wage service employment. Industries that feature higher-paying jobs, like telecommunications and financial services, have produced little new employment.
A dispirited business community, meanwhile, thinks that the harsh times won't end anytime soon. More than half the state's businesses believe that Jersey's economy will be worse in 2007, and only 17 percent now say that the state is a good place to expand in, according to a recent New Jersey Business & Industry Association survey.
State residents, weighed down by the highest local property taxes in the nation and a bevy of steep state levies, seem equally disenchanted. The number of residents moving out has tripled in four years, to about 72,000 last year, the U.S. Census Bureau recently noted, leaving Jersey with an essentially flat 0.2 percent overall population growth rate, as births and foreign immigration barely keep up with the exodus. With these latest census figures, Jersey has ceded its place as one of the country's ten most populous states for the first time since 1920.
Corzine has accomplished little in his first year in office that might staunch the outflow of residents or encourage businesses. After the tax increase, Corzine rejected proposals by legislators from his own party to cut government spending by trimming sky-high public-sector employee benefits. Balking at taking on public-sector unions, Corzine instead is exploring ways to raise revenues through fiscal gimmicks, such as selling the New Jersey Turnpike for $10 billion and putting a big chunk of the proceeds toward fulfilling his campaign pledge to cut property taxes. Such a move, of course, would do nothing to trim government spending and would put Jersey in an even bigger hole when the money from the Turnpike sale ran out in a few years.
After an unparalleled run that began in the post–World War II era, in which it blossomed, luring New York companies and growing its economy at twice its neighbor's rate, the Garden State now seems stuck in the same kind of managed decline that the Empire State has experienced for the past 40 years.


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It's official: I've been blogging for five years at Sugar Plum. Five years is a long time!
I'd like to thank my manager, my personal assistant, my accountant… just kidding. I want to thank YOU! Thanks for sticking by and reading for all these years. I really appreciate it! I don't know why you keep coming back, but you do. Thank you.
I feel like all of you know so much about me, but I barely know anything about you. I wish that could change. I have gotten to know a lot of you through your comments. Thanks for leaving those. I know they're a pain in the neck.
I'd also like to thank my family, and friends with putting up with me taking pictures of the food (for the blog) every time we go out to eat. I'm sure it's embarrassing.
I'm going to keep blogging as long as I can. I'm hoping to get better. I want to improve my writing, photography, and recipes. I also want to make some changes to the blog, and make it easier to use. Everything is put on hold right now while I'm in school, though.
Here's to another five years! Let's all raise our glasses of chocolate milk!
Here are some posts from my first year of blogging.
October 2007 – Oktober Fest Brownies.
November 2007 – Caramel Pecan Pie.
December 2007 – Peppermint Stick Ice Cream.
January 2008 – Sweet & Salty Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars.
February 2008 – Amore Chocolate Cake.
March 2008 – Sweet Potato Cinnamon Rolls.
April 2008 – Double Delight Peanut Butter-Honey Cookies.
May 2008 – Blackberry-Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins.
June 2008 – Red Velvet Cake.
July 2008 – Rainier Cherry & Plum Crostata.
August 2008 – Midnight Chocolate Whoppers.
September 2008 – Kitchen Sink Bundt Cake.
October 2008 – Honeycrisp Apple Pie.
Here's a sweet sugar plum tart for you; flaky pastry filled with a plum jam, topped with French meringue.
Sugar Plum Tart
Tart Dough1 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons confectioners' sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 large egg yolk, beaten
Plum Filling2 cups finely chopped ripe, peeled plums
1 tablespoon honey
French Meringue3 large egg whites
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/4 cup confectioners' sugar (sift after measuring)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Heat oven to 350 degrees F.
In a food processor, pulse together flour, confectioners' sugar, and salt until combined. Add in egg yolk, and pulse until a shaggy dough ball forms. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate 30 minutes. When cold, evenly press dough into bottom and up the sides of a 9-inch tart pan. Bake 20-25 minutes, or until golden brown. Cool on a wire rack.
To make the plum filling, in a small saucepan, stir together plums and honey; bring to a simmer. Simmer 10 minutes, stirring frequently, until softened and mixture is thickened and jam-like. Cool.
To make the French meringue, combine egg whites, granulated sugar, and cream of tartar in a large bowl. Using a mixer with a whisk attachment, beat together until stiff peaks form. Fold in confectioners' sugar and vanilla until combined. Spread plum filling into tart. Pipe meringue on top. Bake at 350 degrees F. for 20 minutes, or until meringue is golden brown and crisp. Cool on a wire rack.


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The token of the Abrahamic covenant during Old Testament dispensations. Those who received it thenceforth enjoyed the privileges and undertook the responsibilities of the covenant. It symbolized some aspects of separation or dedication (1) to God, to whom Israel belonged; (2) from the world, the uncircumcised with whom Israel might not mix; (3) from sin (Deut. 10:16; 30:6; Jer. 4:4; 9:25–26; Ezek. 44:7).
The subjects of circumcision were (1) male Israelites, properly when eight days old (Gen. 17:12), but sometimes at a later age (Ex. 4:25; Josh. 5:2–9); (2) slaves born in the house or bought with money (Gen. 17:13); (3) strangers who wished to eat the Passover (Ex. 12:48).
Circumcision was not peculiar to Israel. It was practiced in Egypt and also by nations with whom Israel had not come in contact. The significance of circumcision was that it was the manifest token of the covenant that the Lord had made with Abraham and his seed. It does not matter that other nations also practiced circumcision for to them it did not have the same meaning or purpose. The various Canaanite tribes appear to have been uncircumcised (Gen. 34:14–17; Judg. 14:3; 1 Sam. 31:4; 2 Sam. 1:20).
With circumcision was connected the giving of a name; but there is no express mention of this custom until New Testament times (Luke 1:59; 2:21). It would follow naturally from the fact that Abram's name was changed at the institution of the ordinance (Gen. 17:5, 10–14).
There was much controversy in the early church with regard to the obligation of circumcision (Acts 15:1–31). The Church under direction of Peter and the Twelve, and acting under the guidance of the Spirit, declared that circumcision was not obligatory for gentile converts. However, it apparently did not settle the matter of whether or not Jewish members of the Church should have their children circumcised. As one reads the scriptures on the matter, it becomes evident that the real issue was not circumcision only but also the larger question as to continued observance of the law of Moses by members of the Church. The word circumcision seems to have been representative of the law in these instances. The controversy was renewed later on in Galatia, as we read in Gal. 2:1–15; 5:2–6, 11; 6:12–16. These passages, along with Rom. 2:25–29; 3:1–2; Philip. 3:3; and Col. 2:11, contain Paul's teaching on the subject.
The Jewish part of the church membership, especially in Jerusalem, appears to have been very reluctant to cease from the rituals and ceremony of the law of Moses (Acts 21:17–25). This is a marked contrast to the Church among the Nephites, in which there seems to have been a cessation of the law immediately upon their awareness of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. (3 Ne. 15:1–4; Moro. 8:8). See also Abraham, covenant of; Law of Moses; Proselytes.


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Durable and stylish full grain leather makes the Dublin Defy Half Chap suitable for everyday riding. A comfortable mesh lining allows for breathability and an inner calf suede panel provides grip. A hard-wearing YKK zipper with touch tape stands up to daily use.
"To build a truly unique product range, Dublin put together a team of talented people including a fashion designer, a podiatrist, and an industrial designer with over 25 years of experience in the USA and Europe designing for iconic brands. It�s more than how it feels on, it�s about how it makes you feel when you�re wearing them. With the collision of Fashion and Function the new Dublin boots are perfect for passionately daring people."
Chap Size Chart:


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A young girl volunteer is caked in mud after an activity on a Raleigh International expedition in the rainforests of Brunei, Borneo. Beaming from ear to ear, the lady relishes her time here in one of the remotest and most dangerous habitats on the planet. It will have been a life-changing experience for her and her new-found friends from all over the world who will have had to raise several thousands of sponsored Pounds for the privilege of spending two months away from a dull, comfortable life at home, rather than building community projects like bridges or schools. Raleigh International is a charity that provides adventurous and challenging expeditions for people from all backgrounds, nationalities and ages, especially young people. Over the last 23 years, 30,000 people have been involved in more than 250 expeditions to over 40 countries.
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